Instead of having such servers started at system initialization time, and be dormant until a connection request arrives, xinetd is the only daemon process started and it listens on all service ports for the services listed in its configuration file.

When a request comes in, xinetd starts the appropriate script.

Sample xinetd configuration file

Listen for connections on port 9001. Run cassandra_status shell script per each thread and return the result.

If you need to support more than 1,000 connections per server, use TCP sockets - they scale much better.

2. Adjust Worker Processes

Modern hardware is multiprocessor and NGINX can leverage multiple physical or virtual processors.

In most cases your web server machine will not be configured to handle multiple workloads (like providing services as a Web Server and a Print Server at the same time) so you will want to configure NGINX to use all the available processors since NGINX worker processes are not multi-threaded.

You can determine how many processors your machine has by running:

On Linux -

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor

On FreeBSD -

sysctl dev.cpu | grep location

Set the worker_processes in your nginx.conf file to the number of cores your machine has.

While you're at it, increase the number of worker_connections (how many connections each core should handle) and set "multi_accept" to ON, as well as "epoll" if you're on Linux:

htop is an interactive process viewer for Linux, replacing the traditional top.

Why htop?

htop provides a more interactive process-viewing experience. You can surf through running processes, scrolling horizontally and vertically to reveal information that would otherwise have been clipped, information such as full command lines.

You can see what files a process has open (click "l"); you can even trace processes using strace. There's also a handy tree view for understanding process ancestry.

Within a matter of hours, you have dozens of bids from software engineers around the world.

All of them carefully reviewed your specification document and made sure it's a perfect fit for their skills before submitting their bid, right?

Wrong!

Canned Bids

Winning projects as a freelancer, is a numbers game. The more projects you bid on, the more likely you are to win a few.

Based on this logic, you should try to bid on as many projects as possible.

Unfortunately a lot of freelancers abuse the system, creating scripts for automatically submitting canned bids, to all new projects in their category.

Take a closer look at the bids you received. Do they mention anything specific about -your- project? Or could the same bid very well apply to any other project in this category?

Eliminating canned bids

In most cases, you don't want to work with a freelancer who didn't even take the time to read your specification document and submitted a canned bid, without ever stopping to think if this is a good fit with their skill-set.

One trick I use to easily detect and eliminate canned bids, is adding a request in the body of the specification document, that goes something like this:

When you bid on this project, start your bid with "loglr.com is great", so that I know you actually took the time to read this spec. This helps me in eliminating canned bids.

If the freelancers bid doesn't include this text, I immediately know it's a canned bid.

Sometimes even though they didn't include the text, the freelancer might catch my attention with a stellar feedback review history. At that point, I give them a simple test, that usually goes like this:

Shortlisting

After you get rid of the canned bids, you're left with freelancers who took the time to carefully review the specification document.

Open a message board and ask them the following questions -

1. Do you have experience creating similar apps/websites?
2. Can you share with me links to your previous work?
3. Do you have experience working with the programming language and platform I described in the document?
4. Who will be doing the actual work?
5. What milestones do you suggest?
6. How much time do you expect it will take to complete this project?
7. How will we communicate during this time?

If the freelancer answers to all of the above questions are satisfactory, shortlist them.

Pay close attention to their communication skills, how long it takes between each reply, how detailed are they and how well you understand them.

Communication is key.

Pick the best two or three

Narrow down the best matches, to a list of two or three freelancers.

You are going to award the project to all of them at the same time.

The freelancer who creates the best result, will be the one you'll continue to the following projects with.

Yes - I am suggesting you actually award and pay two or three freelancers.

Think of it as "cost of doing business". It's an essential price to pay, for finding the perfect fit for your needs.

If you were building a new home, would you jot down your ideas for the house in a short Word document, then send them over to construction workers and expect everything to work out well?

Of course not.

And yet, when it comes to software development, most people do exactly this.

They expect a simple unabridged outline of their thoughts, should be all an accomplished software engineer would need to get the job done.

Architects and Builders

Software engineers need a detailed specification document to work by.

In the real world, when you build a house, you would start with an architect. Your architect's job is to translate your vision into a diagram, with detailed measurements and notes about which materials to use.

A builder then takes the diagram prepared by the architect, orders the required materials, creates a work plan, rounds up the construction workers to do the work and manages them on a day-to-day basis, until the work is completed to your satisfaction.

Product Managers and Project Managers

In the software development world, these two roles are played by a Product Manager and a Project Manager.

The Product Manager's role is to translate your vision, into a language software engineers can understand, using very detailed descriptions, screenshots and visuals, not leaving any room for interpretation.

This document is called a Specification Document. Getting it right is the first step in ensuring your project will be a success.

The Project Manager's role is to manage the software engineers until they successfully build a working program that works looks and feels exactly as described in the specification document.

The Specification document

Ideally, it would be best if you have a professional help you with preparing the specification document.

Try to reach out to a Product Manager, who has experience in preparing such documents.

If you don't have access to a Product Manager, your next best option is to reach out to an experienced software engineer and ask for his/her help.

A good specification document should at minimum include these parts:

1. Overview

Explain what this project is about. Who are the users, what function does it fill and what is the value proposition.

2. Goals

Detailed list of goals. Be as specific as possible about what you want to accomplish with this project.

Include screenshots and examples of similar websites/services as necessary.

3. Technical specification

Define the programming language you want the software engineers to use, the target platform and tools they should use

4. Process flow

Step-by-step description of all the screens a typical end user will go through.

Include screenshots, or mockups - very important!

5. Technical architecture & coding convention

Explain the architecture of the product, which modules you want to have created and how they should interact with each other.

Provide a link to your preferred coding convention, so that it's easier to later manage the code.

6. Budget and timeframe

Your estimated budget and target timeframe for the project.
Ask the software engineers to confirm they can meet these, or work with you on reaching a mutually agreed-upon budget and timeframe, before the project starts.

7. Communication

Include contact information for your project manager (probably you) and be clear about expecting daily updates from the engineer, outlining the progress of the work.

Make yourself available via Skype, email, or phone.

Be sure you are responsive and insist on getting frequent progress reports, along with links to review the project at every milestone.

How to tell if you got it right

Similar to an architectural diagram, a good specification document leaves no room for interpretation.

Two different qualified software development teams, should be able to create the same result, if the specification document is sufficiently detailed.